Smorgasboard

It's hard to be good and post every day, like we should. What you're going to get now is a post that encompasses a couple of different topics.

The first topic involves the fact that I'm hungry. Really hungry. I get up in the morning and eat a small portion of dry cereal and drink a cola. Then I get to work at about 8am. By 10am, I've got to eat my lunch. It's usually a sandwich (bologna and American cheese on wheat with yellow mustard), pretzels, some fruit snacks and a snack size candy bar. Of course I drink a cola with that. Now that we get fresh fruit, I usually eat an apple or pear by about 1 or 2pm.

Today was the standard menu, except that I also had a fresh orange at about 9am as well.

So you gotta figure that's plenty of food, right? But somehow I'm still starving to the point where my stomach hurts by the time 5 o'clock rolls around.

And there's another symptom. I usually wear pants with a 33 inch waist if I need a pair of pants that actually fits right. (About half my pants are a 34, because that fits okay too with a belt.) I put on a pair of dress pants on Monday, and they were too tight! Uncomfortably tight in the waist.

What does all this mean, you ask? I'm fairly well convinced that my body is preparing to hibernate. I think that soon, I will fall asleep and awake again as the snow begins to thaw from this icy wasteland.

Either that, or, I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old and fat.

Another topic for discussion: how awesome is it that you're going to have to call me "Your Honor"?

Pretty awesome.

See, after I've been in Alaska for six months, I am eligible to be a deputy magistrate. That's sort of like a junior junior junior judge. I'll be called upon to sign off on search warrants in the middle of the night on weekends. Very exciting stuff. However, the Alaska courts have made clear that magistrates are considered judges in the sense of the Alaska Constitution. I'll get to wear a robe, and folks will have to call me address me as: Your Honor. Pretty good for six months out of law school, eh?

That's rural Alaska for you. Many fine options for resume building. I'm pretty Samara now has five people that report to her, and they seem to keep adding people under her every day.

And finally, the election. Samara and I both voted today. Neither of us voted for the Alaskan Independence Party candidate, so we'll probably still be part of the United States in the morning. Alaska, of course, will go to McCain. It's a Republican state, for the most part.

The nice thing about being in Alaska is that I'm getting to watch election results after polls close on the east coast, but it's only dinner time here. In other words, I don't have to stay up late to see John McCain cry.

The breaking news, as we speak, is that Rhode Island has gone to Obama. And as we all know, as Rhode Island goes, so goes the nation.